Community Boards: What are they good for? A lot, it seems.

Local government doesn't get much more local than New York City's 59 community boards.

They can be where ideas to improve neighborhoods are born. They can be where political careers are launched. And even if they don't have a lot of statutory authority, the community board is as good an indicator as any on what locals feel about a given issue — specifically how the city's precious space is being used or misused.

The volunteers who serve on the boards must be approved by each borough president, and get to meet directly with city agencies to draw attention to each neighborhood's needs and recommend changes.

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson recently joined WNYC's Morning Edition host Michael Hill to discuss how the application process is changing, why people should join their local board and what to expect if they serve. The interview has been lightly edited.

Michael Hill:  Good morning borough president. So New York City has 59 community districts across the five boroughs and each one is represented by a community board. Please tell us; what exactly does a community board do?

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson: Thank you for having me. Always great to have an opportunity to talk about our 12 amazing community boards in the Borough of the Bronx. Last year we paid particular attention to transforming the process by which residents can apply. So we made the application digital – online – and we introduced a second language.

So we have Spanish applications as well. And we really embarked on a robust, comprehensive plan to engage with high school students because the age to join is 16. We did extensive outreach within faith community based organizations. We talked to many of our community leaders about the importance of being a part of a community board.

It's the most locally democratic process where you are engaging in your local community on land use issues, economic development, new schools, upgrades to parks, playgrounds, you know, everything that's within a community. You are a part of really shaping your community from the character; from the development, from new partnerships, and the community boards have a very important role because you make recommendations to your local councilmembers and the borough president on city initiatives. So we really want to make sure that we take time to recognize the value of our community board members.

We've instituted a code of conduct as well, because we want to make sure that we adhere to a certain level of professionalism and decorum. We also held the first community board orientation. And most importantly, we're working closely with the City of New York when it comes to trainings, Civic Engagement Commission, the New York State Committee on Open Government, OMB, and many others when it comes to training opportunities because we want community board members to be educated and equipped with resources so they can make informed decisions about their communities and about the overall community district.

And Ms. Gibson, what's it like to serve on one? What do you have to do? And what's the commitment time?

So the commitment time is obviously we expect you to adhere to the attendance. Attendance is mandatory. When you do get accepted to join the community board, you are responsible for attending the monthly general board meetings. You also will serve as a member on a number of committees, whether it's education, parks, the ethics committee, the housing committee, land use. So we do expect you to be an integral part of that conversation.

We do have leadership at every community board, so we have a district manager, a chairperson and we have an executive board. We want to make sure that people have an opportunity to be a part of leadership, which means you're shaping your community board, and we want to make sure that you're engaging all the time.

Community boards meet, not all year round. They meet January through June. And then we reconvene September through December. We host joint events. We have block parties, resource fairs, job fairs, health fairs in concert with elected officials and other community partners.

The community boards are really like the first part of getting involved in your community. And we're also paying particular attention this year to really recruit young people at the high school level. So we've been doing visits. We did a day of outreach at local subway stations last week, and we've been able to receive well over 250 applications to date.

So we're very proud of the progress we've made.

Ms. Gibson, why young people?

Young people are the current generation and the next generation of leaders and they need to be in all spaces. We cannot expect different from young people if we don't offer them something different when it comes to youth development, your job, some youth cornerstone recreation when it comes to pathways to college and careers.

Young people need to be at the table and respectful of all of my seasoned community board members that have served for many years, as well as my new community board members that have recently joined. We want to make sure that young people are a part of that. They have great ideas and in order for them to really be heard, we need them to be a part of their local community board.

Ms. Gibson, thank you for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.